Page:A history of the gunpowder plot-The conspiracy and its agents (1904).djvu/275

Rh his release, he proceeded to Louvain. He died, as Rector of St. Omer's, in September, 1632.

Sir William Waad's charge against Baldwin as being an accessory before the fact to the Gunpowder Plot does not appear to have had any real foundation, or he would not have got off with only ten years' imprisonment. Although apparently innocent of actual complicity in the Gunpowder Treason, he was hand-in-glove with several of the conspirators in their attempts to induce Spain to invade England, and when living at Brussels, he maintained an active correspondence with men like Stanley, Hugh Owen, and Garnet, to such an extent that he and Owen were denounced by Cecil as having been accessories to the Gunpowder Plot from the beginning. Baldwin was a mere tool in the hands of the notorious Father Parsons, and was of a crafty and double-dealing character.

Although generally called Hammond, the real name of this Jesuit was Nicholas Hart. He seems to have used 'Hammond' as an alias. It was he who heard the confessions of the conspirators at Huddington, on November 7, 1605. Robert Winter (whose chaplain Hart had been) confessed (January 17, 1606) that Hart had absolved all those present at Huddington on November 7, and had given them the Sacrament at Low Mass. On the same day (January 17), Stephen Lyttleton also acknowledged